Intro

The Nonreligion and Secularity Research Network (NSRN) is an international and interdisciplinary network of researchers; the network was founded in 2008 to centralise existing research on the topic of nonreligion and secularity and to facilitate discussion in this area.

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Call for Papers: Atheism, Secularism, and Science

Announcing CFP: Atheism, Secularity, and Science, a special journal issue in Science, Religion & Culture.Guest edited by: John R. Shook Ph.D., Ralph W. Hood Jr.Ph.D., and Thomas J. Coleman III.
Over the past 10 years research and scholarship on secularity in general, and atheism in particular, has increased significantly. Moreover, these phenomena have been researched, studied and documented by multiple
disciplines ranging from cognitive science to religious studies, and from anthropology to sociology. The study of atheism and secularity is of high interest to not only scholars, but also the public in general.
Atheism and secularity are often seen as two constructs that are intimately related with a third, that of ‘science’. Where one finds the scientific method, positivist epistemology and naturalism in general, one typically finds atheism and secularism.
This special issue of Science, Religion & Culture aims to develop the study of atheism and secularity from multiple perspectives and disciplines, focusing on its relationship with science, while addressing (but not limited to) the following topics or questions:

• Identifying and outlining Lakatosian research programmes in current atheism and secularity research – their advantages and limitations.
• Philosophy of science critiques of current research on atheism and secularity.
• Conceptualizing types of atheism and secularity.
• Atheism and secularity’s role in the separation of church and state around the world.
• Can atheism or secularity be understood without juxtaposition to theism or religion?
• The role of activism in atheist and secular communities.
• An examination of the rise of Sunday Assemblies or, ‘atheist churches’.
• Developing/advancing ‘secular studies’.
• Developing a comparative terminology for studying atheism and theism together.
• Can atheists be ‘spiritual’?
• Atheism and the rise of the Internet.
• Atheism and ‘analytic thinking’.
• ‘New atheism’ and Scientism.
• Atheism, health, and wellbeing.
• Why are the majority of elite scientists ‘atheists’?
• Why are scientists in general less religious than the average person?
• Atheism, a next step in human evolution?
• Identity politics in Western atheism.
• Atheism, secularism, and children.
• Atheism, secularism, and Transhumanism.
• Science, an ‘alternative to religion’ for atheists?
• Explaining atheism in the cognitive science of religion.

CFA: Call for Art We also invite artists, and anyone artistically inclined, to design and submit cover art for the publication of this special edition to be featured/published online, and in print versions of the journal, with an ‘atheism, secularity, and science’ motif.

Book reviews and research notes will also be considered and encouraged. All submissions must follow Science, Religion & Culture-Author Guidelines or they will be declined without review.

To submit: All submissions will be blind reviewed. Please attach a cover page with author(s) and institutional information as a separate file with the submission of your manuscript. The deadline for all submissions is December 31st 2014.
Email all final manuscript submissions for consideration directly to Atheism, Secularity, and Science Co-editor Thomas J. Coleman III at Thomas-J-Coleman@mocs.utc.edu.